How to price animation per second

The short answer

Estimate the film stage by stage in hours: script and voiceover, styleframes, storyboard, animatic, animation, sound and delivery. Most of those stages do not scale with length. Multiply the hours by your studio's hourly cost, add freelancers, licences and a margin, and only then divide by the running time if the client wants a per-second number. Quote cutdowns and extra aspect ratios as their own lines, and write the rounds per stage into the quote.

Why per second is a presentation unit

A 60-second film does not cost twice a 30-second one. The script, the look development, the styleframes and the client sign-offs take nearly the same time whatever the length. What scales with length is animation, rendering and part of the sound work. So a flat rate per second either overprices long films or loses money on short ones.

The per-second figure is still useful. Clients use it to compare quotes and to decide between a 45 and a 30. Give it to them, but calculate it from the job, not the other way round. If someone in a pitch asks "what do you charge per second", the honest answer is a range by complexity, followed by "send me the script and I will give you a real number".

Step 1: know what an hour costs you

Before any stage estimate, you need the cost of one studio hour: salaries or your own target pay, rent, software, hardware, render costs, divided by the hours people actually bill. The day rate calculator gets you there from an income target. Treat the result as cost. Margin comes later.

Step 2: estimate the stages

These are the stages of a typical motion job, with what drives the hours in each. Estimate each one separately.

Put the included feedback rounds inside each stage's hours. A round on styleframes is cheap, a round on finished animation is expensive, and the estimate should reflect that.

Step 3: pick the complexity tier honestly

The same 30 seconds can take three days or three weeks. Three rough tiers cover most briefs:

• Kinetic type and simple graphics: text, icons, shapes, transitions. Fast to animate, slow to get right if the client keeps editing the copy.
• Illustrated 2D with characters: design, rigging or frame-by-frame work, lip sync if anyone talks. Character count is the main driver.
• 3D: modelling, materials, lighting and render time on top of animation. If the product model already exists from a stills job, a lot of this is shared.

Mixed jobs are common: a 3D product hero with 2D type over it. Estimate each part in its own tier rather than averaging.

Step 4: a worked example

Lantern Motion, a four-person studio, is quoting a 30-second launch film for a running shoe brand: 3D shoe hero shots, kinetic type, a voiceover. The client wants the 30, a 15 and a 6, each in 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1. These numbers show the method; they are not a benchmark.

At an hourly cost of 55.00, the hero film costs 9,900.00 in studio time. The voiceover artist charges 450.00 including a one-year web and social buyout. Licensed music for paid social is 300.00. That gives 10,650.00 in cost. A 25% margin makes 13,312.50, rounded to 13,300.00 for the hero.

Now the versions:

The full job comes to 15,990.00. If the client asks for the per-second figure, the hero is about 443.00 a second. Notice that the 15-second cutdown is nowhere near half that rate per second, because it reuses everything. That is the point of quoting versions as lines: the client sees what each extra file costs and can drop the ones they do not need.

Step 5: cutdowns and aspect ratios

Cutdowns look like editing work and often are not. A 6-second version needs its own structure, sometimes a different end card, sometimes a new shot because the hero moment does not fit. Reframing for 9:16 means checking every shot for type and product position, and in 3D it can mean re-rendering with a wider or taller camera. Price each as a line with a quantity, for example "3 x 9:16 reframe", and say in the notes whether a reframe includes re-rendering or only re-cropping.

Step 6: licences and third-party costs

Music and voiceover are licensed for a use, a territory and a period. A track cleared for organic social is not cleared for TV or paid ads in every library. Put the licence on the quote as its own line with its scope written out, for example "Music licence: online and paid social, worldwide, 12 months". If the client extends the campaign, the licence renewal is their cost, and the quote should say so. The same goes for stock footage and fonts the client does not already own.

Step 7: rounds per stage

Rounds protect the schedule more than the budget. Write how many rounds each stage includes and what an extra round costs:

• Styleframes: two rounds, extra round at a fixed price.
• Animatic: two rounds. Timing changes after animatic sign-off are changes, not revisions.
• Animation: two rounds of notes on the full cut.
• Sound: one round.

The guide on project budget vs hours covers how to check during the job whether those rounds are eating the margin. For the general pricing method behind all of this, see how to price a freelance project.

Common mistakes

• Quoting the hero and throwing in the cutdowns. They become expected on every future job.
• Forgetting render time on 3D shots. If you use a farm, it is a cost line like a freelancer.
• Pricing from the client's budget. Ask for it, but estimate first, then see whether the scope fits.
• No line for VO pickups. Script changes after the session mean a second session.

Doing this in OIO

In OIO the job is one project, and each stage or deliverable is a ticket on a kanban or a timeline: styleframes, animatic, each shot, each cutdown. Freelance animators get a link to their shot's ticket; they read the brief, download the assets, upload their passes and mark it done without an account or a seat. Timecoded notes go on the ticket as checklist items. The client follows progress on a password-protected status link that shows each ticket and its status.

The quote lists the hero film and each version with a quantity, a unit and a price, in any currency, and the invoice comes from the same project. Freelancer fees and licences are recorded on the project in their own currency at the day's rate, so the margin is visible. OIO has no video review player and no time tracker; hours on a ticket are entered by hand. More on OIO for motion studios.

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